


Fractures

by skysedge



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Amaurotines (Final Fantasy XIV), And during Canon, Angst, Ascians (Final Fantasy XIV), Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Gen, Missing Scenes, Pre-Canon, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:42:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skysedge/pseuds/skysedge
Summary: The Speaker has a role to play and play it he shall, no matter how much time weighs on his sanity.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 5
Collections: Fic In A Box





	Fractures

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cadmean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadmean/gifts).



> Hello! I've never written about the Ascians before but your prompts were so funny I had to add a fill. I hope you enjoy!

“...and so we must take this burden upon ourselves for the sake of every soul in Amaurot, on this star, nay, for the sake of everything that is now and everything that has the possibility to become!“

He addresses his peers from the Speaker’s podium, his tone confident, his poise perfect. Outside the heavens are raining fire. People are dying. Abominations slip through the fabric of reality and tear the world asunder. Still he wears his usual smile. 

It’s not that he’s unafraid. No, like everyone else Lahabrea is _terrified_.  But he has a role here, a purpose, and if he is to speak on behalf of those who are unable to speak for themselves then he cannot allow himself to show that fear to anyone.

“It falls upon _us_ to deliver them from destruction,” he announces, sweeping his arms into the air. “Members of this most esteemed Convocation, I call upon you now to raise your hands in support of this motion, in support of our one and only hope...”

Behind his mask, Lahabrea’s eyes are wide and fearful. He resolves to show no one. 

“...renewal is the only way. We must have half again in order to save the whole.”

Success had not been certain. Their best efforts had not been enough. The skies are still aflame and the streets now run with blood. But there is another plan, one more step they can take, and even though it chills him to the bone he knows what he must do.

Someone has to speak for those who have already given their lives for the good of others. Someone has to toil to make sure their sacrifice was not made in vain.

“No doubt you have heard the murmuring of dissenters,” he says boldly. “Even from of one of our own, but look within your hearts and know that this is what you must do...”

They look within. They resolve to try again. He smiles with feigned optimism and it spreads throughout the Convocation little by little.

And yet optimism alone fixes nothing. Hydaelyn passes her judgement and everything is lost. It’s a tragedy unlike everything he has ever known. His world broken. His people mutilated. He wants to scream and wail until it stops hurting.

A selfish, impossible desire. He still has a role to play, even in this void between worlds where his voice sounds thin and weak. He speaks with as much of his usual grandeur as he can muster.

“We shall call it The Sundering. We shall work tirelessly until we can bring together all these fractured parts and gossamer souls, we shall-”

“Oh _do_ stop going on.” 

Only one person would have the gall to sound bored in a situation like this. Lahabrea glares at Emet-selch across the darkness and finds him wearing a pitying smile.

“You’re not the Speaker any longer, Lahabrea,” Emet-selch says. “There is no Convocation. You can talk to us as comrades and as friends.”

He could but he won’t. He draws himself up, raises his chin haughtily.

“Someone needs to address those of us that remain,” he argues, beginning to regain his momentum. “My words shall hold together the remnants of order and keep us from following our brethren into chaos and-”

“We need less talk,” Elidibus interrupts from where he had been standing and listening in thoughtful silence. “And more action. We all know our missions from here. I would rather you act upon yours than tell us how to act upon ours.”

“But-” Lahabrea tries.

“But chop-chop old friend,” Emet-selch laughs. “There’s no time like the present.”

“ _ But...”  _

__

Lahabrea’s voice shakes, just for a moment. He curls his hands into fists, his mask hiding tears standing in the corners of his eyes. The others watch him until he manages to speak again.

__

“But I don’t know what else to do,” he says softly.

__

Despite all their plans, all their ideas, none of them had been able to prepare for a fate like this, one worse than death, one which seemed impossible to reverse. And he doesn’t want _pity_ but Emet-selchsqueezes his shoulder anyway.

__

“You’ll work it out,” he promises. “We all will. Together.”

__

Elidibus steps closer, tugs on his sleeve.

__

“Be strong, Lahabrea. For everyone we have lost.”

__

They both seem different since it happened. He can’t quite put his finger on how. He hopes that they can reverse the damage before he has a chance to find out.

__

“For Zodiark,” he adds quietly.

__

“Yes.” 

__

“That too.”

__

__

__

It’s a mantra he repeats to himself over and over in the coming years. Worlds upon worlds, plans upon plans, he throws himself into his work headfirst and time loses its grip on him. He’s on the Thirteenth Shard, near the end, speaking to a would-be hero as they lay bleeding on the ground.

__

“...the fate of everything that is now and everything that has the possibility to become. It...”

__

He’s said those words before. It takes him longer than it should to remember when, where. He sees the faces that had been turned towards him then, the people he’s lost, friends and colleagues whos voices he can barely remember. Those words had been for them. He’s not going to waste them on a half-formed being like this. 

__

“It matters not,” he decides, raising his hands and beginning to summon dark energy. “You have not the capacity to understand.”

__

Soon all that remains of the hero is a charred hollow in the ground. He steps into it before heading back into the void. 

__

“Deliver them from destruction,” he murmurs, not knowing why he’s smiling. “Zodiark...”

__

__

__

He won’t call it revenge. No, the chaos he’s sowing is his mission, it has a purpose, it’s all part of the greater good. And yet he can’t deny that it’s therapeutic, watching these lesser, ugly beings reach pointless, pitiful ends. They’re not real, no more than a half-formed thought given form. In fact it’s a kindness to deliver them from such an existence.

__

He tells this to another set of would-be saviours, there’s no end to them across the worlds he travels, and he’s sick of the sight of them.

__

“Raise your hands.”

__

They do and they look nothing like the Convocation. He ends them without a second thought.

__

__

__

He’s in a quiet corner of the void, scratching away at some parchment with a quill like a man possessed. 

__

He’s unsure how long he’s been here, knows only that he has to make a record, he has to have some physical evidence that everyone he remembers once existed. Today he had forgotten the names of two researchers he had grown up with. He’s not going to forget anyone else. And so he writes lists, descriptions, histories, has covered nearly a whole scroll when he’s interrupted.

__

“=Lahabrea.”

__

He doesn’t bother looking up.

__

“Emet-Selch.”

__

“A written record is a terrible idea, you know.”

__

Lahabrea gives a bark of laughter, the tone almost cruel.

__

“My thoughts grow cluttered like the floor of your room in Akadaemia Anyder.”

__

“You don’t say?”

__

Emet-selch doesn’t rise to the insult. He takes a long look at the parchment and then hums in thought.

__

“Elidibus wanted me to check on you. He says you’ve been reckless. Of course, I told him that our Speaker would never do anything so exciting or...”

__

Lahabrea hasn’t been listening. He had been halfway through a sentence and can’t remember how to finish it. He sits frozen, quill touching the page.

__

“=Lahabrea=?”

__

He purses his lips and then reads in a murmur.

__

“Our one and only hope...” 

__

He had said those words aloud, once. He had believed in something. Just what was it again? 

__

__

__

“Look within your heart.”

__

He speaks the words on impulse, driven by deep memory, even though he knows they’re wasted on this person. Gaius van Baelsar. A mortal with grandiose ideas far above his station, with sickening pride and misplaced trust in his own strength. It has been so easy to manipulate this one, his pitiful power enough to influence those below him, but even though Lahabrea’s plan is proceeding apace he’s sick of being here.

__

Soon it’ll all be over. Soon he will inflict destruction on one part of this Shard after another until it collapses in on itself and returns to the whole. He wants to be there when Gaius van Baelsar falls. He wants to see the way he crumbles when he realises how powerless and worthless he truly is.

__

Lahabrea can’t remember if he’s always been this sadistic. He can’t remember much of the way he used to be when the world was whole. But some things remain, some phrases etched deep into his heart. He stands at the warlord’s side and speaks one aloud.

__

“Know that this is what you must do.”

__

__

__

It feels as though he’s only blinked and he’s in another place, another time, but the same stolen shard. Beside him sits an old man, frail with lofty ideas, and around them are assembled various knights all with delusions of grandeur. The Heaven’s Ward, they call themselves. He laughs every time he hears it.

__

“Fractured parts and gossamer souls,” he murmurs.

__

No one is listening to him. They don’t appreciate his worth, his power. They had no idea that their time on his Shard is limited that soon Lahabrea will take everything that is rightfully his back for good.

__

“Remnants and chaos.”

__

“You have something to say, Ascian?”

__

He smiles at the knight that has questions him, imagined vapourising him into nothingness.

__

“No.”

__

This time he will succeed. He has to.

__

__

__

One world after another has given way to one failure after another, over and over and over, he’s backed into a corner with few options left and gods it’s just like then, no good options left and only pride left to hold onto, but at least he has Igeyorhm, he’s not alone, he’s...

__

__

__

And then he is alone. Igeyorhm, dead. Emet-selch, sleeping. Elidibus, silent. All the others, dead. He’s had enough. He longs to slip into the void and cease, to stop feeling, to stop having these chaotic thoughts, to stop being adrift in the vastness of time, labouring against a never-ending gale of misfortune.

__

In the darkest corner of his heart, he wants it all to end.

__

But it can’t. He can’t give up now. He needs to save them, all of them. He needs to make things right. That desire is the only thing that keeps him whole. And so he heads back to the mortals, to those who don’t understand. He heads back to them anticipating the pain of another failure. As he re-joins their ranks, he whispers to himself behind his sleeve.

__

“I don’t know what else to do. Zodiark...”

__


End file.
